Last spring, a small wad of carpetbagger racists (KKK, etc.) came to Knoxville to recruit and generally intimidate. They received a most jolly and unexpected reception.
Saturday May 26th the VNN Vanguard Nazi/KKK group attempted to host a hate rally to try to take advantage of the brutal murder of a white couple for media and recruitment purposes.
Unfortunately for them the 100th ARA (Anti Racist Action) clown block came and handed them their asses by making them appear like the asses they were.Alex Linder the founder of VNN and the lead organizer of the rally kicked off events by rushing the clowns in a fit of rage, and was promptly arrested by 4 Knoxville police officers who dropped him to the ground when he resisted and dragged him off past the red shiny shoes of the clowns.
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Might I add what a beautiful thing it is to read that the police were cooperating with the anti-racist public, and not facilitating the racists? Much still needs to be done in places like TN, but clearly, much has already been accomplished!
For additional ways to combat hate, check out the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Ten Ways to Fight Hate
Thank you for posting this Laurel, it really made my week!!!
And thank you Anti-Racist Clowns!!!!!
Posted online at
Alex Linder’s arrest:
reading, listening or participating. in this case, i did the mighty hard work of reading a tip-off email from a friend. ;D
I personally believe that the best strategy is to pay them no heed*, but in the absence of that, polking fun at them was the second best strategy.
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*I’m somewhat referring to the Skokie IL incident a few years ago. The counter-protesters at the march of the American Nazis gave them more national publicity than they could ever have hoped for otherwise.
i don’t think there is any one best strategy. i think certain approaches probably make more sense than others in different situations. something that struck me about the knoxville demo is that those clowns were extremely well organized and well prepared to respond to the specific rhetoric used by the knuckle draggers. clearly they had done their homework. so i gather that preparation is vital for such an approach to work. hard work! they definatly get an A+.
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on the other hand, i recall the phelps clan being outside cambridge city hall the 1st night marriage was available to all. in that case, i think the best possible thing happened – so many thousands of people were so jubilant that the phelps’s minuscule presence was just drowned out by the joy of the evening. as far as i can remember, the sad little cult was largely ignored, and that worked well. i sure as hell wasn’t going to waste any of my happiness looking at them!
…and that is the point.
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If the clowns had merely yelled and screemed at the KKK/NeoNazi demonstrators, that would have made their demonstration essentially the equivalent of Skokie. But they didn’t do that. The counter-demonstrators made fools out of the KKK/NeoNazies. That was why it was so effective.
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If I may, I will harken back to 1998. The funeral of Matthew Shepherd. If you recall, the Phelps clan was there, doing their usual silliness. But, if you also recall, they were surrounded by people dressed as angels, who made a silent protest against the Phelps clan’s silliness. Which was more effective, the Phelps clan’s protest, or the counter-protest? Obviously, the latter.
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Also, which was more effective in Nashville? I would almost bet that you would agree with me that the clowns’ protest was more effective. It’s actually unfortunate that this did not make the national news.
“Wife Power” obviously is a play on the ancient Greek play Lysistrata (sorry, that’s the German spelling).
…non-classicists
I also think a Klan march should always be news. As far as coverage helping them, it’s a lose-lose: they’ll claim martyrdom if they’re ignored, or legitimacy if they’re covered. But I want to know, especially if they’re anywhere near where I live. By the way, this may be dated, but at one time the Klan’s national office was in Connecticut.
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…if nobody pays them (the KKK/NeoNazis) attention in the original march, who is going to pay them any attention in their subsequent bleatings that nobody had paid them attention? Unless it’s a very slow news day, absolutely nobody.
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Unless it was unclear, I think the legitimacy claim is just as invalid as the martyrdom claim. But you can’t ignore them entirely.
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And I write as a former journalist, so I have a broad view of news.
I mean “In case,” not “Unless.”
from context and since that's what it means in Dutch. But I've never heard it used this way in English.
correct on both counts (see below). sorry the meaning was so generally opaque, though. it was not my intent to make anyone guess. i’ve axed the atmospheric word and replaced it with something a little moretherer clearer.
define:dorp
Village or small township, small town.
With Firefox, there's the handy toolbar in the upper right for purposes such as that.
…witn IE 5 on our ancient computer here in Germany there’s no such thing
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So “Dorp” is basically Friesdeutsch spelled slightly differently.
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We were in the Netherlands once, over a decade ago, and, after I could make out the spelling, I could understand what had been written.
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Bei mir, es wuerde “Dorf” sein.
Bei mir, es wuerde “Dorf” sein.
(1) German does not set off adverbial phrases with commas
(2) The verb should be in second position, not third as you have it.
Why gratutitous, incorrect German? What’s the point?
Actually, they do both of those things. Waschow?
is a perfectly suitable english* word. it is used to mean “small town” in the midwestern state where i grew up, and any reputable dictionary will give you a similar definition. i guess it’s use is not so widespread as i thought.
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i’m going to change it to another term in the diary, since this is an unfortunate distraction. or are trying your hand at being a protest clown? 🙂
L: “Dorp!”.
KB: “Dork, you say?!” miming fake buck teeth a la Jerry Lewis and shoving imaginary glasses higher onto the bridge of his nose.
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*it does also happen to be a dutch word with the same meaning. dutch and english share an enormous vocabulary. not surprising i suppose, considering their proximity and intertwined histories.
If I'm not mistaken, it's not at all uncommon for German words ending in f to appear in Dutch ending in p.
honestly, i try not to think about german too much. i’ve nothing against it. it’s just that although i never learned it well enough to carry on a conversation, and couldn’t recall a word if you asked me, the latent knowledge seems to bubble it’s way to the surface just when i’m reaching for a dutch word. same goes for spanish. very inconvenient! not to mention confusing to the listener, who never seems to have heard babylonian before. i seem to have two language pots in my brain, labeled “english” and “other”. hopefully if i ever reach real proficiency in dutch, it will get a 3rd pot all its own.
Yeah, I've noticed the two language pot problem too. For that reason, I got myself a French-German dictionary. I don't know how one gets around the English & Other problem.
i’ve done something similar, in that i use a dutch-dutch dictionary, so at least i’m not thinking english when figuring something out in dutch. the dutch have produced many excellent learning aids for foreigners, including this dictionary with definitions using very simple sentences and synonyms that are commonly used. dutch is sooo much easier to learn than anything else i’ve encountered. they’ve deliberately regularized their language. much appreciated!
I don’t know what Friesdeutsch is like, but, when we were in the Netherlands, we noticed that they used different words for entities that would be used in most of Germany. For example, a railroad station would in the Netherlands be called a “station” (pronounced slightly differently than in Amerikanisch), but it would be called a “Bahnhof” in German.
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Different words for the same thing.
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I’m sure that the Fresians knew the difference.
i don’t have any experience apart from what is spoken in the province of holland. however, i have heard that there is a tremendous difference in vocabulary between, say, even belgium and the hague. even to the extent that people from those areas conversing together have to strain a bit to understand each other. and that’s not even accounting for accent. also, frieslanders consider their dialect a language apart (hollanders don’t always agree with them…). so much variation in such a small area!
…the Grimm brothers, there is a common language in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Everyone in school learns Hochdeutsch, and they can converse in it quite well. Even if they choose to use their local dialect at home. Waschow? (Weiss du schon? Ya know?)
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Actually, it has helped to unify the region. Not as much as the EU in its various guises did, but somewhat. Esparanto (a/k/a Amerikanisch) will help unify the region better.
…the anti-hispanics in the US suspect that adoption by the Amerikanische language of Spanish words indicates a depredation of the language. German, over the last decade, has adopted an amazing number of Amerikanische words without any problemmo.
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I actually knew what you meant by “Dorp.” When you get to Friesland (which includes Hamburg and the Niederlaende) the accent is very different than here in Bavaria. Actually, the accent in Niederbayern (up close to the Czechs) is very different than here in Munich (Oberbayern).
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Geographical explanation for “nieder” and “ober.” It has everything to do with elevation in regards mean sea level. Niederbayern is “nieder” because of its elevation. The Niederlaende (Netherlands) are “nieder.” because they are the low lands. Actually, much of the Niederlande are below mean sea level.
New Dorp. NYC has a lot of Dutch rooted names, for obvious reasons.
waere es “mir waere es “Dorf” sein.”
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I don’t know how many Germans would put it that way in speech. Sorry, I don’t do Umlauts.
Philosophies range from Pay Them No Heed (aka stay home), to Shout Them Down. This past spring, the people of Knoxville, TN found a delightful third way.
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The citizens of Knoxville figured out that the best way to deal with the outside agitators was to laugh at them. It’s unfortunate that they did get more national attention while doing so, but the “Wife Power” picture was absolutely precious.
Two white supremecists have just been arrested for bludgeoning 2 homeless guys to death in Hingham. These two supreme beings cut off the hand of one of the dead, buried it for a few months, then disinterred it for a bragging session at a party. They also laughed as they described the gurgles the dying men made.
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Massachusetts is home to numerous hate groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project lists groups in Boston, CHelsea, Dorchester, Haverhill, Revere and Springfiled.
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